#Caleb Frost Sanderson ##Pre-work Essay for Front-End Engineering Cohort ###9/9/2016
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Lao Tzu
This quote is a bit cliché, but still true for me. My journey into code began with a couple simple steps;
- looking for a new career in a creative field,
- a lifelong and almost nagging interest in how the heck computers do what they do,
- talking with other converted musician-turned-coder friends, etc.
In reality, I feel like I’ve awakened in the middle of a very long journey and found myself standing at a crossroad. Assessing the tools that I have collected to this point I seem to be reasonably equipped for the code path. Now, how to proceed?
Maria Popova’s blog on fixed vs. growth mindsets was extremely enlightening not only for myself but for my family as well. My wife homeschools our two children so we are very interested in learning and developmental issues. I shared the blog with my wife and I’m sure that the section on early childhood development will have an immediate impact on our family culture.
In my own life, I have struggled with a fixed mindset. I had a lot of difficulty in my early years and even into college with starting challenging tasks. I would feel overwhelmed, procrastinate, and then once I was able to start a task or challenge, I would struggle with attention and focus. Music was the one area that I loved enough to be able to push myself past all those feelings and achieve some level of success. My thinking now is that since it was a physical task that uses aural skills, it engaged my mind in a way that I could override the self-talk long enough to get “in the zone”. College was a struggle as well but I was able to focus on music and that helped me to learn how and when to push myself, limit distractions, and change my self-talk in a way that made me successful. Graduating college was my first real case study in a growth mindset. Since then, I’ve massively changed my approach to both work and personal success. One example is that I made up my mind to run a marathon and in a year and a half went from only being able to run a single thirteen minute mile to running 26.2 miles fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon in my age group. I certainly haven’t arrived and in fact have learned that since a growth mindset may not be my default, I must be diligent and disciplined in maintaining it. I also believe that “arriving” is a myth anyway. Life is a journey (sorry for all the clichés).
One of our family mottos is “We are grateful for new and difficult tasks.” Our kids even parrot my wife when she quotes it during school time. However Pavlovian it may seem with our kids, it has seeped into our family culture in a real way. I’m sure that The Iron Yard will probably be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but I am grateful for the opportunity to pursue a new and difficult task because the potential rewards seem amazing. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to not only survive this new task but to be the best I can be at it. It’s my new marathon.
That is all great but what does that mean when the guy in the back row irritates me or I feel overwhelmed by the pace and content of the class? I am admittedly concerned about being 40 in a what seems to be a young person’s industry. My family status, married with 2 kids and all that comes with that, is also an area of concern. Will I be able to stay mentally pliable enough to learn this much in such a short time? Acknowledging all that stuff IS my game plan though, NOT surrendering to it. Instead I’m planning to focus on my strengths. The fact is, I’m currently better suited for this kind of work than ever before. I may not have a 20 year old gamer’s brain but I have fought and won some major maturity battles in developing interpersonal skills, work ethic, having good boundaries, self-esteem/self-worth, and personal leadership. When things get difficult during this cohort I hope to be able to work hard enough to get through it and maybe even help someone else out as well.
I enjoyed all 38,000 words of Paul Ford’s “What is Code?” It was witty, informative, high-level enough to warrant taking notes, and still low-level enough for me to recommend to my wife as an introduction (maybe with some skimming). I especially appreciate the perspective that he gives in portraying the managers and programmers point of view in a real work environment. At the end of the day, there is work to be done, goals to be met, and people to answer to like any other business. I’m most excited about his description of the culture which seems to be congruent with what I’ve gleaned from my other friends in the industry - creative and intelligent people working in a collaborative, team-based environment. In short, it sounds awesome and I believe I will thrive personally under those conditions. The concept of GitHub alone is amazing to me. I’ve never worked in a creative environment that gives that much version control and collaboration all at once.
When I toed the line at the Jacksonville Marathon in January of this year I had never run a full 26.2 miles and honestly had no idea if my body would hold out at the pace I intended to run. I had a decision to make; either play it safe and just try to finish or risk blowing up mid-race by going out too fast. I decided to trust my training and my gut, even in opposition to professionals who told me that I shouldn’t try for such a lofty goal in my first race. I put in the work, trusted my training, and achieved my goals finishing my first marathon with a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. I plan to take the same attitude and hard work ethic into my time at the The Iron Yard.
This is great!